Theater review: 'A Doll's House Part 2' explores what happens when an estranged mom, wife returns

By Iris Fanger/For The Patriot Ledger

Sunday

Jan 13, 2019 at 1:21 PM

Nora, the wife who so famously slammed the door on her marriage to end Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play, “A Doll’s House,” returned last season to Broadway in a sequel, “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” imagined by playwright, Lucas Hnath. She now strides across America on multiple stages at the regional theaters, including at the Huntington, in a co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The four-hander features Nora; her husband, Tovald; the housekeeper, Anne Marie; and daughter, Emmy.

Part 2 opens where Ibsen’s play left off with a knock at the door that Nora closed behind her 15 years ago. Mary Beth Fisher takes the role of the former doll-wife, “my squirrel” as Torvald once called her. She sweeps in wearing a trailing coat and long period gown, like a European version of the Statue of Liberty, assuming the authority if not the compassion of that symbol. She is sure of herself, imperious, and harbors no regrets for wrecking the family she abandoned.

While she sought the privilege of re-inventing her life, Torvald and Anne Marie faced the neighbors, kept the house, and raised the three children, leaving Nora unencumbered by responsibility. As to the rights and wrongs of her position, glibly put and talked nearly to death in Hnath’s version, the decision lies in the eyes of the beholders — meaning the audience. In this day and age of #MeToo, not to mention the recent congressional hearings on the Supreme Court appointment of Judge Kavanaugh, there’s no middle ground on taking sides.

Nora has returned for a reason, which includes neither an apology nor a wish to see the children who are now grown with lives of their own. It seems that Torvald never filed for a divorce, so Nora is still officially his wife. In the 19th century, a married woman had few rights around signing contracts, taking lovers or managing alone. Although she has become a successful author, writing books about women and their newly sought independence, she is in trouble for acting on her own and could be sent to prison by a malevolent judge. She has come back to ask the favor of a divorce from Torvold, who refuses her request at first. Nora also seeks help from Anne-Marie and Emmy, who hold grudges of their own.

Hnath has written the play as a debate between the invested parties. The script is full of monologues stating each position and two-person dialogues that unfold like courtroom stand-offs between witness and prosecutor. The action plays out in a high-ceilinged, stripped down room (designed by Andrew Boyce) holding only a pair of chairs that serve as weapons in the battle, rather than places of rest. Director Les Waters enhances the economy of staging in masterful blocking of the chairs as if circling the wagons. Waters also avoids any sentimentality in the meet-and-greet confrontations.

The disconnect in this production lies in the casting, or perhaps the choices made by Fisher as Nora and John Judd as Torvald. Fisher, in her period draperies, is large, assertive and speaking with pride for making it on her own. Judd, in a devastating performance of the remains of a man, is compact, guarded and on the defensive, still not sure why he’s been accused. It’s difficult to believe that he once held the upper hand in the marriage, and that he keeps any illusions about his wife. In contrast, Boston actor Nancy E. Carroll is superb as the diffident Anne Marie, with her actions, facial expressions, and gestures telegraphing as much as her lines. Nikki Massoud, Nora’s polar opposite as daughter, Emmy, enacts a powerful revenge, disguised as a calm assessment of the mother she does not remember.

The problem for this viewer, who saw and loved last year’s Broadway production (with Laurie Metcalf as Nora and Kingston’s Chris Cooper as Torvald), is that because Fisher is never at a loss for words to explain herself, she strikes no sparks of sympathy or feelings of camaraderie, woman to woman. Nor does she change, despite the revelations she learns at her once-home. Even in the context of the man’s rule in 19th century marriages, Fisher’s Nora has not suffered in the way her family did, nor do her achievements for the cause of women’s rights excuse her behavior. If that’s a value judgement, so be it.